Thursday, June 22, 2006

A funny thing happened on Monday. I was checking out the site meter on my blog to see how many hits I received that day. Having so many dedicated fans to my blog, it is hard to keep track of all y’all. In reality, I am lucky to get one reader a day, never the less I check the meter just to see. Something that caught my eye as I looked through the list. There was a hit from someone who stayed for around 12 minutes and while they were at work of all places. This one also grabbed my attention because the company this person worked for is the same one I now work for. I am an office assistant for an independent financial adviser who uses LPL as their brokerage firm and for other reasons. Therefore, it is somewhat strange that I just got a job at a place that is affiliated with some random person reading my blog. Well, I started to dig deeper because I was curious as to who this person was. I went through my e-mail inbox to see if someone I knew had an LPL address and lo and behold, I found one. It is my Elder’s Quorum President. I think someone turned me in for speaking out against the establishment in my last post. Oh crap, I am so screwed! He is not the kind of person you want to mess with.President if you are reading this, I meant no harm. I was only writing a satirical post just for the fun of it.

You all may be thinking, why would Spencer be afraid of his Elder’s Quorum President? Well, you don’t know what kind of man this is. He is fierce beyond description. To best describe him I came up with this list* of 10 reasons we all should be afraid of him. I will call him President U just in case it wasn’t him reading my last post.

1. There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures President U has allowed to live.2. When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for President U.3. President U doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.4 Outer space exists because it's afraid to be on the same planet with President U5 If President U knew kung fu, he would sue NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.6 When President U does a pushup, he isn’t lifting himself up, he’s pushing the Earth down7 There is no such thing as global warming. President U was cold, so he turned the sun up.8 President U doesn’t wear a watch, HE decides what time it is.9 President U can slam a revolving door.10 President U is so fast, he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head

Now that the man who I tried to stick it to has found me, what will happen now? These are the things I think will happen to me.

First, he will un-pimpmy auto.Second, I will be required to wear a pink shirt every Sunday for the next six months.Third, my privilege of haveing home teachers will be revoked.Fourth, a new committee will be formed called the Except Spencer Committee. The job of this group is to make sure all activities and social gatherings titles have the phrase “Except Spencer” included. Here are a few examples: The Father and Son except Spencer Camp out, the Ward except Spencer Picnic, a progressive except Spencer dinner, and The Ward Christmas except Spencer party. Other provisions are that I am to stay in the car when I drive my family to any of the said activities and if I make eye contact with anyone, I will be publicly panted.

This is what I get for expressing my opinion. I will keep my fat yapper closed next time.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

My ward has a huge Elder’s Quorum and I mean big. I guess we have about 45 elders in the quorum meeting each Sunday. Being in Southern California that is good considering the cost of living out here—real estate prices aren’t exactly friendly. The main reason we have so many elders is because there are two affordable housing (low-income apartments) complexes in the ward. My complex has about 15 families and the other has over 20. Most of the people living in these apartments are young families. This adds handsomely to our ward’s Elder’s Quorum, Relief Society, and nursery.

Despite the large group of men together each Sunday, hardly any of us know each other. I don’t claim to know why my Elder’s Quorum is unsocial; I just know what I see. What I see is a whole lotta nothing!! No talking, no visiting, no smiles, just a group of guys either staring straight forward or with their heads down. I see this during priesthood when the young men and the high priests are around and through the lesson. It is almost comical at this point because as I walk into priesthood and see this sad sight, I start to imagine what could have caused such sadness. Maybe someone’s dog was run over by a tractor and then the tractor backed over it again to see what it ran over. Someone else must have found evidence that their wife is a terrorist; others must be coming to grips that the WWF is not real. Whatever the reason, my Elder’s Quorum is not a place I am excited about going to. Even with a good lesson, there is a depressing aura in the air.

One of the other funny things to me is the groups that some how migrate to each other while still not interacting. It is the birds of a feather flock together concept, even if they have nothing to talk about. There are the fathers that have baby duty. The group of guys that kind of know each other who sit in the back row with their heads down hoping to avoid eye contact with anyone. The guys who know no one and sit in the middle hoping someone will be friendly to them. And then you have those who sit in the front rows who bring their manual and eagerly answer questions. I want to point out that our meetings are in the gym making it easier for the elders to put space between each other. Oh yes, the last group is the hallway roamers. These special creatures are the ones who stay for priesthood and then leave in the first few minutes of the lesson. They make it look like they are going to the bathroom and somehow they never return. Often I wonder if they fell in the toilet and were only freed when the class was over. This rare species was made known to me by my needing to chase my daughter as she ran out the door and down the hall. In the hallway, these creatures herd together and chat while leaning against the wall and they stay there for the duration of the lesson. I think we should make a new Elder’s Quorum calling, a hallway monitor. If I had that job I would make myself a large tag that reads “Elder’s Quorum Hallway Monitor, You know what’s up. Go to class.” And when I find my prey I would say nothing, I would just walk up to the herd and stare them down while tapping my sweet tag. Like a wolf in the mists of sheep, they would run like little sissies. I could do some real clean up that way.

I am not saying that social means that these men should be chatty during the announcements and the lesson. I am saying I hope that priesthood should be a place where people acknowledge your presence in one way or another. You know like someone, anyone, saying hi to you at some point in that hour. Moreover, for goodness sake someone besides the Elder’s Quorum president should say hi to new people. I for one know a little less then half the elders and I say hi to them. I doubt other know that many. The thing that gets me most of all is that there is at least one to two empty spaces between each elder. That is the most obvious sign that people don’t know each other and don’t want to make the effort. I at least have an excuse as to why the brethren keep there space from me, I freakin stink. B.O. City here!! Population: Spencer J

Monday, June 12, 2006

Geocaching, is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which participants (called "geocachers") use a Global Positioning System receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world. A typical cache (pronounced /kæʃ/ like the English word cash) is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and "treasure" (usually toys or trinkets of little monetary value).

For the traditional geocache, a geocacher will place a waterproof container, containing a log book (with pen or pencil) and treasures, then note the cache's coordinates. These coordinates, along with other details of the location, are posted on a website (see Websites for geocaching). Other geocachers obtain the coordinates from the Internet and, using handheld GPS receivers, seek out the cache. The finding geocachers record their exploits in the logbook and online. Geocachers are free to take objects from the cache in exchange for leaving something of similar or higher value, so there is treasure for the next person to find.

Typical cache treasures aren't high in intrinsic value. Aside from the logbook, common cache contents are unusual coins or currency such as two dollar bills in the United States, small toys, ornamental buttons, CDs or books. Also common are objects that are moved from cache to cache, such as Travel Bugs or Geocoins), whose travels may be logged and followed online. Occasionally, higher value items are included in geocaches, normally reserved for the "first finder", or those locations which are harder to reach.

Geocaches can range in size from "microcaches", too small to hold anything more than a tiny paper log, to those placed in five-gallon buckets or even larger containers.If a geocache has been vandalized or stolen, it is said to have been "muggled" or "plundered". The former term plays off the fact that those not familiar with geocaching are called "geo-muggles" or just muggles, a term borrowed from the Harry Potter series of books. If a cacher discovers that a cache has been muggled, he or she can flag the cache as needing maintenance, which sends an e-mail to the cache owner so it can either be repaired, replaced or deactivated.Geocachers who have done the sport for awhile often recognize small things out of place that the muggle will never see, and find a geocache there even without their GPS. Geocaching is something that can take practice for the more inventive geocaches.

My home teacher, S to the Dowler, came over with his wife and ate our food. He brought with him a sweet hand held GPS device to take us on a quick geocaching adventure. The cache was stashed a week ago, so it was new to S to the D and us. We gladly accepted his offer. The cache was in our town center which is only a five minute walk from our home. His GPS system can get a cacher within 9 feet of the object at best. Once we were with in the twenty foot range we were on our own to find the prize. Leave it to my wife to find the sweet thing.

The reason I call it the exercise of nerds is because a cache could be exiled to a far off trail miles from any road. In essence, it is a global scavenger hunt for dweeb. Publicly I act not interested in such activities, but deep down I am a closet nerd yearning to go cache hunting again. Must have more!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

The great evil one has struck back. She is angry about me exposing her sinister plan and has hit where she has the most power… my brother Ian. I said in my last post that she can get power over the minds of those she gets trinkets from. There is no one else she has more trinkets from then Ian. Ian and the one went to a bon fire last night at the beach. She sent Ian into a trance making him think he got transported to a world of candy. There were lollipop trees and chocolate fountains everywhere. Just in front of him was a huge bowl of ice cream with a sign next to it that read, “Jump in, the ice cream is nice.” On the edge of the bowl was a diving board. Ian made a quick sprint and jumped right in. The bowl of ice cream was really the fire. Landing on the fire caused Ian to come out of the trance and he quickly jumped out. He sustained 2nd degree burns on his feet, but other wise he is well. The dirty fart that did this to Ian will pay dearly.

He really tried to jump over the fire and slipped, but that doesn’t make a good story.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Ok, I need to expose a secret plan to take over the family. Ian, my big younger brother, has a friend who seems to be around often and when I say often I mean a lot. I first met her at the beach around Easter. I saw her for about 7.46 minutes and that was about it. In those few minutes I found out that she had already met my brother and his family in Arizona. I think she had a wedding to go to and Ian went along. Then I found out that Ian and her went up to Utah for General Conference and stayed at my other older brother’s house while up there. On Mother’s Day she was at my parent’s house eating dinner with my family who lives here in town. This gave her yet another opportunity to meet a brother and my parents.

Today, I went surfing with my big younger brother and guess who was there? That is right, Ian and his friend. You know, up to this point I never thought twice about her meeting so many of my siblings, but that changed after I heard her say one thing to me.

As I walked up to them on the beach the first thing that came out of her mouth was, “Your sister is really nice.” It was at this point I realized something was wrong. She has met almost all my family except one brother. There are seven kids in my family and they are spread throughout Northern California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, and San Diego. That is a lot of ground to cover if you didn’t have an ulterior motive. After hours of pondering and contemplating, I know what she is doing. I think she has been slowly collecting some article from each of the siblings for one sole purpose. She is going to work some freaky mumbo jumbo with these things and take over all of our brains. She is going to make us think our last name is SARAHSTON. I know this is a radical idea, but why else has she seen more of my siblings then I have in the last two months?